


(what does it mean to) moonlight with you

by redledgerr



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Angst, Clintasha - Freeform, Fluff and Angst, Gen, More tags to be added in the future, Post-Mission, Strike Team Delta, clintnat, descriptions of a bloody room, mission aftermath
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:28:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21655279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redledgerr/pseuds/redledgerr
Summary: Strike Team Delta is one of the best teams in SHIELD's history. After all, how could they not be, with the world's best avenging archer Clint Barton, and new SHIELD recruit Natasha Romanoff (better known as the Black Widow) making up their ranks. But that doesn't mean that their missions always end on a positive note, or that either member of Strike Team Delta escapes them unscathed. Clint and Natasha have to confront this reality, while also sorting through their feelings for their jobs, and for one another.a part of my "one word prompt" series  -- moonlight
Relationships: Clint Barton/Natasha Romanoff, Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov, Clint Barton/Natasha Romanova, Hawkeye/Black Widow
Comments: 3
Kudos: 14





	(what does it mean to) moonlight with you

**Author's Note:**

> Hello there! This is a fic for my dear friend Spooky (@sneakronicity). It was her birthday a while ago and while she said she didn’t need a present, I couldn’t resist and I not so sneakily asked her for a word to base a fic off of. She gave me the word "moonlight", and thus, this fic was born! I also want to dedicate this fic to all of my ClintNat family (you know who you are), because you guys are nothing but lovely, amazing people and you all deserve everything good in the world. I am so blessed to be friends with all of you, and I cannot express how much you all mean to me. 
> 
> I'd also like to dedicate this fic to the best "beta" reader on the planet, the one and only @emswifts. I always scream with joy every time I see one of your messages in response to a snippet of this (or any other) fic! You've been nothing but incredibly supportive and encouraging, and I love that we're able to scream over your NaNo work & this fic together. Nothing says best friends like bonding over the struggles of being a writer, huh! I also hope this helps to bring a smile to your face, I know you've been having a rough go of it lately, and I hope the pain goes away soon. 
> 
> Okay, I've rambled for long enough! Please don't hesitate to let me know what you think by hitting the kudos button below, or leaving a comment! This is the first chapter of (hopefully) many!

* * *

_ moonlight:  _

noun: the light of the moon. 

verb: to have a second job in addition to one's regular employment.

* * *

Out of everything that Clint Barton could be thinking about tonight, the stars in the sky definitely hadn’t been something that was on his mind. And while the mural above him had definitely caught his eye, it hadn’t mattered to him what the mural was even depicting, or whether or not he even liked what he saw. And to contemplate whether the white speckles he saw surrounding the “foggy” vinette of the scene were a result of the scuffle that had just taken place within the opera house or a purposeful intention of a world-renowned artist had been _ so far _ from anything that was on his mind that to even  _ entertain  _ that thought caused his head to throb. Why give a shit about  _ fictional stars  _ any when Clint was so damn close to seeing the  _ real ones _ ? 

Come to think of it though, that was probably because - no more than thirty minutes ago -, Clint Barton was slammed into a pillar at full force. 

The mission he’d been on hadn’t been an easy one, and the fight that Natasha and him had been in culminated in a 360 degree assault by their enemies. Natasha, of course, had taken it on in grace - Clint still didn’t know how she could manage to take down three guys in a floor-length ball-gown and high heels, though he remembered her saying it had something to do with the slit in her dress - and Clint had followed suit, trying to make the disposal of the enemies as efficient and as clean as possible. Of course, that wasn’t exactly the enemies prerogative either, as they only had one goal; to _ kill _ . 

The bad guys didn’t accomplish  _ their  _ goal, but the whole mission left a sour taste in Clint’s mouth, and it wasn’t just because of the cut on his tongue. The mission hadn’t ended exactly as SHIELD had hoped. The bad guys had gotten away, Natasha and Clint had blown covers they spent  _ months  _ building, and they hadn’t even managed to pull in one of them for questioning at SHIELD. Not exactly typical of Strike Team Delta. 

And while Clint Barton was used to SHIELD missions not going (entirely) his way, what he _ wasn’t  _ used to was ending so much out of the mission that he ended up staring at the colors of a ceiling mural rather than helping his “still-new-but-not-super-old” partner recover from the mission herself. He was used to having missions go wrong by himself - and they often did when he was new and learning the ropes - but him and Natasha had become quite the well-oiled team together, and though they’d both soared through more windows than they’d like to admit, they always ended up landing on their feet; or at least they had, before today. 

It was that painful realization that brought Clint to his senses, and pulled his throbbing and aching head off of the fancy velvet carpet beneath him. He’d needed a moment to clear his head, and to take a breather before SHIELD’s helicarrier had arrived to pick up the two of them, which is how he’d ended up here. Natasha too, had more than encouraged the break. But whether she thought he’d spend his “washing up time” laying on the stairwell they just had their asses handed to them in, well, that’s something he didn’t know. But if Natasha didn’t at least  _ expect  _ something like that to happen, then she didn’t really know him well at all either.

The two of them were still in that weird “getting to know one another” phase where they weren’t quite strangers but they aren’t quite attached at the hip either -- only as Clint thought about it, the less true that last statement became. Natasha hadn’t always sparred with the man during her SHIELD training, but it wasn’t like she didn’t  _ prefer  _ to spar with him, and was he  _ really  _ going to pretend that he hadn’t taken her to his apartment on the weekends and ordered out Thai food and introduced her to some of “America’s Greats” when they didn’t have a mission to go on?

But for each thing Clint knew about her, there were about 20 things he didn’t. He knew that she loved her hot chocolate with a dusting of cinnamon on the top, and even though she wouldn’t often  _ use the straw  _ if Clint included it, she couldn’t touch her sugary treat until a straw was resting delicately in the ceramic mug. He also knew that she liked stealing his big fluffy red blanket during the movies, that she had “her spot” on his couch, and that she liked pushing in the little bubbles on her to-go cup from McDonalds whenever they’d grab a soda. And sure, he also knew that if he asked her in  _ just the right way  _ she’d never pass up a stop at a local diner to get the best strawberry milkshake she’d ever had, but he hadn’t felt like he knew a lot  _ about  _ her.

He knew her favorite color (yellow) and knew the way her eyes sparkled when she found something that she thought was funny and knew her order at the shawarma place by heart (two wraps, extra garlic paste) but he hadn’t known anything about her life before SHIELD (and sometimes even during it) that didn’t come from an eval file or other mission documents. 

And it was for good reason too; what he knew about the Red Room - yes, he reminded himself, that was what it was called - came from nightmares Natasha had in the middle of the night, and flashbacks and panic attacks that he often helped her calm down from. Topics like that weren’t exactly easy to talk about, and Clint understood better than anyone that there were just some buttons you didn’t press on, and that there were some memories that you wish would just shut the hell up and stop haunting you every god-damn second of every god-damn day. (And if there was anyone who deserved to  _ not have those memories haunt her _ , it was most definitely Natasha, without a doubt. He did hope too that the Russian he’d been learning had been helpful for her, and while he knew his pronunciation certainly wasn’t great - he knew he wasn’t saying  _ anything  _ right - he hoped the reassurance of someone being there was just enough for her to fight her demons, and get the rest that she truly deserved.)

It just hadn’t often crossed his mind that she hadn’t really had much else to tell, and he’d had to truly realize and  _ remember _ that the Natasha he knew was really the only piece of  _ Natasha  _ that had existed. The Red Room owned the Widow, but she owned  _ herself _ , and had reclaimed the mantle of the deadly spider for her own. To be used for what  _ she  _ wanted, instead of being groomed into what the Red Room wanted her to be. But even Clint hadn’t understood  _ exactly  _ what went on behind those walls quite yet. 

Clint groaned, and with a huff, rolled onto his side, a sharp stabbing pain coming from his ribs and radiating downward. With a gasp, he took another breath, and did the best he could to shake it off. He may have been kicked there with a metal-toed boot, but the other guy had looked much,  _ much  _ worse, and it was nothing Clint couldn’t walk off. Or at least, he’d be able to, in a few days. 

But it wasn’t his injuries that he was worried about now, as his train of thought only had one person prevalent in it’s cargo. Natasha’s name had been plucked from the heavens and placed gently in his mind, but as Clint had laid here, the weight of her name only pressed harder on his shoulders. Because she’d been working, cleaning up their mess, while he had laid down, contemplating whatever the hell he was about paintings he wouldn’t remember instead of helping her recover too, and giving her the break he knew she deserved. The worry he began to feel only increased, because while she’d encouraged him to take the break  _ he  _ needed, he knew something was up if she hadn’t returned to him after this long. 

“Alright, Barton, come on-” Clint grunted to himself, pulling himself up on his knees, before slowly standing. His knees shook when he stood, and it took a moment for him to gain his balance. “Let’s go get her.” His voice was slightly weak, but he wasn’t pressing the issue now - even if he had to hold his ribs slightly while he moved into the other room. 

Clint moved into the next room, his toes dragging on the velvety carpet as he crept around to the doorway. “Tasha?” He called out gently as he leaned against it, careful to conceal the hand on his stomach, just in case her eye happened to stray there. He hadn’t had to worry about opposition any longer, and thus, felt comfortable searching for audible reassurance of her presence.

Clint knew better than to speak, and he also knew how to search a room, so why he hadn’t done  _ that  _ instead of breaking protocol and potentially putting himself in danger, he couldn’t quite put his finger on. But if no one had come searching for them now, it likely meant that they never would. After all, Clint and Natasha’s cover story involved going to an opera, and who in the audience would  _ ever _ expect that a fatal fight between SHIELD agents and some of the world’s most dangerous people would break out three doors over from backstage?

Clint’s voice leaked with urgency as he called Natasha’s name, despite him trying his hardest not to sound desperate, but that desperation only grew when there had been no response from her. He couldn’t say he was surprised, as Natasha often followed protocol slightly more strictly than he did; both because she was required to and because (at least some of) the rules were designed with their safety in mind. She also knew how to get around undetected, and Clint was half hoping that she’d show up behind him and startle him into next Tuesday despite not meaning to, and then the two of them could jump on this Quinjet and get the hell _home_ , but when that hadn’t happened either, he found his smile - that just came about with the thought of her company - dropping. 

Where the hell was she? 

But when he stepped into the room, he could start to see why she deserted it. Broken ceramic vases and large pieces from broken wooden tables littered the floor. The curtains were torn to shreds, the ornate designs no longer distinguishable as the beauty they once were. Fabric clusters lay discarded on the floor - a gentle reminder that both Natasha and Clint had to be creative with their weaponry, and destroy more than they had wanted in an attempt to stop the assault, and get out of there unscathed. There wasn’t a single surface in the room that was untouched, every surface tainted by the battle that occurred there. 

That thought was only confirmed as Clint continued to move slowly through the room, following trails of glass shards as he journeyed deeper. He searched for Natasha, but he knew in his gut that he wouldn’t be finding her here. The room before him barred no resemblance to the room that they had fought in, or the room the opera had designated it to be. What used to be what Clint could only guess was a dressing room - based on the shattered mirrors, broken light-bulbs, and old costumes discarded on the floor - had turned into a battleground. A place meant for love and performance of the arts had become another casualty in a never-ending war.

And it would be hard to wipe the blood from his mind. 

Upon seeing it, even he’d stumbled back slightly. This wasn’t a clean mission, of course, seeing as it hadn’t gone well, but this pushed even the definition of one  _ dripping  _ in red. It was almost completely  _ doused  _ in it. Clint hadn’t remembered that much carnage, but the blood smeared on the walls told a different story. The adrenaline in Clint’s blood steam was keeping him upright, and he took another step forward, only looking down when he felt the carpet give slight way beneath him and squish beneath him. 

Oh,  _ god.  _ This was definitely more brutal than he remembered. Quickly, he took a step backward, giving the room a quick scan to hopefully confirm what he already knew. Of course she wouldn’t want to be here. He knew, even if he felt that he didn’t know her, that she wouldn’t want to be in a place like this. Not...not after all of that, not after everything that happened. 

His mind buzzed with new urgency as he made his way out of the room, carefully dodging debris on the floor, and carrying himself out of the space as quickly as he could. Being in a place like this wasn’t good for either of them, but Clint could handle the exposure. Natasha shouldn’t have had to, because he should have _ done his job _ and should have _ been her friend _ and  _ helped her  _ and  _ kept her out of here  _ and  _ taken the work _ , not because she couldn’t do the work but because he knew sights like this impacted her more than her exterior would ever let her admit. He was going to do everything in his power to keep her from coming in here.

And he had to find her. 

Knowing that Natasha needed him was exactly the conviction he needed to continue on leaving, but looking around the room again as he left, something caught his eye. Clint made his way toward it, and couldn’t fight the gnawing (and  _ knowing _ ) feeling in the back of his throat or shake the rock that was forming in the pit of his stomach. 

Tucked in the mess of all of the chaos, all of the blood and debris and mess, lay a small pile of shards, collected from a vase, gathered together on one of the only benches left in the opera that wasn’t completely shattered. Though that description was kind; the bench itself was still hobbled on one side, a chunk of leg missing on it’s left side and big, giant gashes made down the delicate wooden front. Resting behind the bench was a mirror, somehow salvaged from the dressing room and miraculously un-cracked; save for the lower right corner, which had slightly distorted Clint’s reflection. The vase itself - or really, the remainders of it - sat gently on top of the bench, clustered in as tightly a pile as they could be. Clint knew instantly that each and every piece of the vase had already been accounted for. 

In the pit of his chest, he knew it wasn’t just a  _ feeling  _ that he’d been too late anymore. 

He knew the signs of her; which meant that he also knew to look where others haven’t, and maybe that was part of the reason why the tiny pile of ceramics caught his eye in the first place. Of course, maybe he had noticed the vase’s absence, but the effort to return it into the best state it could be was what weighed on his mind, and carried more significance to him. 

Because that was  _ Natasha _ . It was her essence, captured in an action. Captured in pain and brokenness - through the shattered pieces of the vase - and also in beauty, though not just the physical kind. It was in her ability to return the vase to what it had been - not that it was really her fault it was broken anyway - and to try and make the damage they had caused negligible, or so insignificant that the opera house wouldn’t even realize anything was damaged to begin with. The beauty came not just from the fact that  _ she  _ was the one who tried to fix the vase, but that she’d made another statement on the world when doing so. It wasn’t ever just from the vase, and if Clint was honest with himself, it didn’t really have anything to do with it either, only the woman behind it all. 

Of course, Clint knew without a second thought that  _ she _ had been the one who tried to repair the vase. He knew that it was her eyes who noted the absence of the vase in the first place; her  _ gorgeous  _ and  _ stunning  _ green eyes that noted something had changed since they’d first walked in the room. He knew that it was her delicate hands that sifted through the rubble to find every piece she could - even those drenched in blood - and place them gently on the bench cushion above her crouched form. He knew too, that it was her mind - her beautiful, caring, and  _ strong  _ mind - that was able to look past all of the gore and blood and  _ destruction  _ and find something worth saving, and something that  _ should  _ be. 

SHIELD was big on damage control, but they weren’t necessarily concerned with preventing said damage in the first place, just  _ containing  _ it. What needed to be done was done, and that came with damage, in one place or another. And if that harm hadn’t come to their agents, that was considered a success, and it didn’t matter where that pain was distributed, or to who. SHIELD was more humane in their ways, sure, and it wasn’t like the goal was to  _ unjustly  _ distribute pain, but Clint wasn’t going to pretend like SHIELD didn’t distribute the damage to those they felt deserved it either. And while SHIELD definitely did their work of cleaning up after missions to prevent any loose threads from surfacing again too, their form of “compensation” to those involved had been solely monetary, with a complete disregard for sentiment, for any value other than what SHIELD might  _ gain  _ from having the mission succeed in the first place.

They never put in the care that Natasha had, and that confused Clint. Who Natasha was and how she behaved was what SHIELD was supposed to be, and was the vision on which they were founded. Natasha was their poster child and embodied everything he thought SHIELD stood for, and for what; to be treated like shit by rookie officers and only valued for whatever “contributions” she could bring to a mission? Clint hated it. Because he saw Nat, and he knew, at the very least - even if he didn’t know her at all - that she was  _ good _ . Not that she  _ could  _ be, not that she  _ wasn’ _ t, but that Natasha Romanoff was the strongest and greatest person on the planet, and that it was SHIELD who had lucked out in having her, and not the other way around. (Even though SHIELD shouldn’t think that they own her in the first place.)

It was probably a good thing that Clint wasn’t holding a piece of the vase already. His clenched fist would have been more than enough to shatter it even further than his botched roundhouse kick already had. But with a shake of his head and a soft huff, he moved to pick up a small piece resting on the top of the mound - careful not to disturb the rest of Natasha’s work - and twirl it ever so gently around his fingers. Because he saw what SHIELD hadn’t, what they still didn’t. He saw his partner. He saw Natasha. He saw  _ her  _ for who she was (even if he didn’t fully realize it yet), and not who anyone else wanted her to be. 

It wasn’t difficult to picture her here doing what she could to put the vase back together. Clint knew if they had glue, she’d probably been sitting here trying to put the pieces back together, trying to fit each and every piece into where it belonged. After all, what else could they have done while waiting for the okay to head home? Though Clint wouldn’t have preferred anything else; he would have loved to watch her work, and help her piece together the vase again. To watch as she got that little crinkle in her nose when she was deep in concentration, and to watch as her lips moved toward her left side when she found a piece that didn’t quite fit right. He’d help her too, of course, running through the rubble to grab her whatever piece she still needed, and to search for those she hadn’t found yet. It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that he’d go so far as to search the city for a piece if she’d asked him to. He’d go to the ends of the earth for her. He’d do anything if she asked him to. 

There was a gentle smile on Clint’s lips now, and he gently turned to place the shattered ceramic piece he’d picked up, back to the place it had been in. He did his best to match where Natasha had placed it, having to adjust it a few times before he’d finally set it down. He couldn’t disturb what she’d done, and he hadn’t wanted to taint one of the pleasant things this mission could bring. Not even the mural he’d been staring at earlier compared to this, could compare to her. 

Slowly, Clint moved to stand, and he took in the room again. Natasha deserved so much better than what she had. She deserved so much more than to go on these kinds of missions with an abysmal success rate, so much more than to risk her life every single day for an organization that - while they valued her - valued her for all of the wrong reasons. She deserved more than that; Natasha deserved more than having to be here and do SHIELD’s dirty work for them by cleaning up their mess. 

But looking around the room again, he’d realized that the room  _ hadn’t  _ been cleaned. The only part of the room that had been tidied was the small part of the room he was standing in; the segment of the room that was closest to the room’s entrance. Everything else had been bloody and tainted, just as they’d left it. Natasha hadn’t even been able to finish it. 

_ “God-//DAMN//-it!!”  _ Clint cursed as he bolted out of the room. He should have helped her, no matter how hard his head was hurting or how bad the mission affected him, he  _ should have helped her,  _ he  _ should have helped her.  _ He had to go find her. He was her partner, damn-it, he should have seen this coming. You never leave a partner alone, and he’d done exactly that. He hadn’t meant to, of course, but he’d still done it. He’d left the one person in SHIELD that he never  _ wanted  _ to leave, and the one person who had been through more than the entire room combined and had  _ trauma  _ that they were still working through and that impacted them  _ deeply _ and he should have  _ known  _ that this space wouldn’t be good for her. He’d left the only person he cared about,  _ alone _ , to clean up not just SHIELD’s mess, but  _ his  _ and he  _ should have known  _ and  _ guessed  _ that this mission would affect her. He should have known, he should have helped, instead of laying on the dirty carpet staring at a mural that didn’t mean anything while the one person he loved was left dealing with  _ all of this pain  _ alone. 

He really needed to get to her. 

But as he stumbled back into the room with the mural, he realized he wasn’t sure where to go next.  Where could she have gone? He tried to rack his memory to remember what way she left, which way she’d turned, but his memory was a haze, his vision clouded. He couldn’t remember; the only thing he’d seen had been a flash of red hair, and then it was gone.  _ Damn _ , his concussion! Clint hit his right leg with his fist, and grunted in frustration. That was going to leave a bruise later. 

Why couldn’t he do  _ anything  _ right? Not only did he  _ leave  _ his partner when she needed him, but now he couldn’t find her?! He’s a fucking agent of SHIELD, and he can’t track her?  _ God!  _ Clint was starting to get a migraine, and the shock and adrenaline coursing through his veins was finally starting to wear off. He was starting to shut down, but he had to fight through it. He had to  _ use his damn brain  _ and  _ find his partner _ . He had to find  _ Natasha. _

Clint couldn’t help himself from pacing the room, head slouched in nervous defeat. Where could he go to find her? A million possibilities racked his mind, but none of them seemed to fit. Would she have gone back to their seats in their box and tried to watch the opera? That definitely seemed like something Natasha would want do; only with their covers blown and a bounty on their heads, that certainly didn’t seem logical. She couldn’t have left; unless she needed to take a lap around the city, just like Clint needed a moment to himself...but no.  _ No _ , she cleaned the room, she couldn’t be far. She wasn’t in there and - Clint moved quickly to check the door of the room to his right, and looked even more frantic when he hadn’t seen her - okay, she wasn’t there either. But where else could she be?

Clint ran his fingers through his hair, his heaving chest heavy. He was working himself up, he had to stop this. Natasha was okay, he’d find her, and they could both go home. He had to believe that. He  _ had  _ to, he had to, he  _ had  _ to. Clint pulled at the roots of his hair for a moment, and with a panicked gasp, moved to put his head in his hands; or he would have, if it wasn’t for the coat of chalky white powder that had coated his palms. 

“What the-?!” Clint paused, cocking his head to the side, rubbing his fingers with his thumb. His brows furrowed and he glanced around the room, trying to figure out the source of the white powder before shaking his head vigorously. Was this his concussion, causing him hallucinations? Had his vision been worse than he thought? 

A loud  _ thump!  _ from the ceiling disrupted Clint’s thoughts, and as Clint’s head jerked up, he couldn’t help but notice the soft white snow, raining down from the mural above his head, and showering the velvety steps a little further into the room.

Clint let his eyes follow the powder for a moment, and couldn’t help but break out into a smile as he realized the pathway that had opened up to him. “You son of a -” Clint shook his head, and almost let out a chuckle. He knew in an instant that that was where he’d find her, that all he’d have to do was treat the white specks of paint - he now knew that’s what it was - like bread-crumbs, and he would find her. 

So he started up the stairs, leaving the mural with the “foggy” vignette and the painted stars behind him. 


End file.
